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...rted his career as a farmer, growing tomatoes in southern New Jersey with his younger brother during high school and college. Shortly after earning a degree in agricultural science from Rutgers University in 1955, he spent six months living in rural India where he became intimately familiar with the food/population issue. In 1959 Brown joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service as an international agricultural analyst.
Brown earned masters degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Maryland and in public administration from Harvard. In 1964, he became an adviser to Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman on foreign agricultural policy. In 1966, the Secretary appointed him Administrator of the department's International Agricultural Development Service. In early 1969, he left government to help establish the Overseas Development Council.
In 1974, with support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Lester Brown founded the Worldwatch Institute, the first research institute devoted to the analysis of global environmental issues. While there he launched the Worldwatch Papers, the annual State of the World reports, World Watch magazine, a second annual entitled Vital Signs: The Trends That are Shaping Our Future, and the Environmental Alert book series.
Brown has authored or co-authored 50 books. One of the world's most widely published authors, his books have appeared in some 40 languages. Among his earlier books are Man, Land and Food, World Without Borders, and Building a Sustainable Society. His 1995 book Who Will Feed China? challenged the official view of China’s food prospect, spawning hundreds of conferences and seminars.
In May 2001, he founded the Earth Policy Institute to provide a vision and a road map for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy. In November 2001, he published Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth, which was hailed by E.O. Wilson as “an instant classic.” His most recent book is Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
He is the recipient of many prizes and awards, including 23 honorary degrees, a MacArthur Fellowship, the 1987 United Nations' Environment Prize, the 1989 World Wide Fund for Nature Gold Medal, and the 1994 Blue Planet Prize for his "exceptional contributions to solving global environmental problems." More recently, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Italy, the Borgström Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, and appointed an honorary professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Degrees
• B.S. Rutgers University (Agricultural Science) (1955)
• M.S. University of Maryland (Agricultural Economics) (1959)
• M.P.A. Harvard University (Public Administration) (1962)
Topics
• A Sustainable Society ?
• Redefining National Security
• The Global Economic Prospect
• The Future of the Automobile in an Oil-Short World
• The Population Problem
Some publications
• Who Will Feed China? Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet (1995)
• Tough Choices: Facing the Challenge of Food Scarcity (1996)
• Eko Kezai Kakume: Environmental Trends Reshaping The Global Economy (1998)
• The World Watch Reader (edited by Lester Brown and Ed Ayres) (1998)
• Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge (with Gary Gardner and Brian Halweil) (1999)
• Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth (2001)
• The Earth Policy Reader (with Janet Larsen and Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts) (2002)
• Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (2003)
• Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures (2005)
• Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (2006)
• Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (2008)
Some of his current positions
• Founder, President and Senior Researcher, Earth Policy Institute
• Advisory Committee: Institute for International Economics
• Advisory Council: Environmental & Energy Study Institute
• Member: Cosmos Club
• Member: Council on Foreign Relations
• Board Member: Institute for Sustainable Development (Poland)
• Advisory Council: International Fund for Agricultural Research
• Vice Chairman: Advisory Comm. of the US-China Assoc. for Envir. Ed.
• Advisory Committee: Eco-Policy Center, Rutgers University
• Board of Advisors: International Fund for China’s Environment
• Advisory Committee: United Nations Foundation
• Advisory Board: Center for a New American Dream
• National Advisory Board: Population Connection
• Treasurer & Board Member: Farview Foundation
• Advisory Committee, Internews
• Advisory Council for Excellence in Environmental Engineering: Sierra Club
• Steering Committee, The Ecological Cities Project (Univ. of Massachusetts)
• Board of Patrons, International Network of Green Planners
• Advisory Board, Green House Network
• Fellow, World Business Academy
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- A Sustainable Society?
- Redefining National Security
- The Population Problem
- The Future of the Automobile in an Oil-Short World
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